ROI doesn't always pan out with unified communications

Return on investment is a big but unfulfilled promise of unified communications.

The well established potential for cost avoidances and lower operational budgets with UC don't necessarily pan out in practice, says Henry Dewing, an analyst with Forrester Research. "They're not deriving the benefits they expected," he says.

His research finds that about half the respondents have no plans to deploy UC this year, about half saying they don't have the budget and about half saying they don't see the business value.

"When you talk to end users, they want a 12-month return and a triple digit ROI," Dewing says, and that is not achievable in many cases.

Click to see: UC ROI chart

Establishing ROI is difficult for some businesses because IT directors that propose use of UC don't calculate a baseline cost of certain business functions before UC that they can compare to the costs after an implementation, he says.

For example, Collette Vacations, a Pawtucket, R.I., business that sells travel packages got into UC for the functionality, not the savings so the company hasn't been tracking it religiously, says Bill Dziura, executive vice president of IT for the firm.

Collette uses an Avaya-based UC system integrated with Microsoft's Office Communications Server. The system was installed at the end of 2007 as part of an upgrade from a 20-year-old Executone TDM phone system that included a rudimentary call center.

The new system gives mobile workers access to the VoIP network via softphones in their laptops, access to presence information of other employees, voicemail accessible from their Exchange e-mail, and SharePoint collaboration and content management.

All users have extension dialing, full presence via OCS, and conferencing that is used for training with features such as instant messaging so participants can communicate offline while someone else is speaking.

Initially, the system was gathering less voice mail, but he attributes that to more callers opting to send e-mails or to instant-message agents.

"The sales team has one phone number now," he says. Callers enter the agent's extension and if they're not there, it goes to their cell phone, house phone or is forwarded to their sales assistant. "We couldn't do that before," he says.

Some of the UC features must save money, he just doesn't know how much. Agents can be deployed in different time zones so someone is available no matter when customers call, he says. Making some calls over Internet connections saves phone costs.

The sales team is managed more effectively and with less travel via conferencing, he says.

"The UC stuff?" Dziura says. "It's tough to put a dollar amount on that. How much do you save by getting a person right away when you call?"

Other businesses have an easier time tracking certain benefits because UC is eliminating third-party services for which they have billing records.

That is the case with Advocate Health Care, which has been using Alcatel-Lucent UC products since 2005, including its Omni PCS 4400 IP PBX, MyTeamwork conferencing and collaboration platform, and My Instant Communicator software that blends all forms of messaging so it can be accessed from multiple devices.